Liza Sadovy on the UK premiere of Daniel’s Husband and the ‘incredible and appalling’ nature of humanity

Ralph Richardson famously said that “Acting is merely the art of keeping a large group of people from coughing.”

It suggests that the most captivating of stories, told by the most extraordinary of players, can distract audiences from even their own bodily impulses. But what if the drama is so moving that it causes an involuntary reaction?

Liza Sadovy has always been entranced by this quote from 1946. She’s currently starring in the UK premiere of Daniel’s Husband, a play by Michael McKeever, which centres on the titular couple whose carefully constructed life is disrupted by an unforeseen crisis. What is that crisis? We couldn’t tempt Sadovy to even hint at it.

“It’s not a deliberate hook,” she explains. We don’t have to work out whodunnit like The Mousetrap or keep it secret like 2:22 A Ghost Story. Closer to home for the actress, “It’s not like Cabaret, where you had to put a little sticker over your phone… It’s just the way it’s written. You can hear the silence of it.”

The drama, directed by Alan Souza, plays out across 90 minutes at the Marylebone Theatre (“It feels intimate without being tiny”), where Sadovy is joined by David Bedella, Luke Fetherston, Raiko Gohara, and Joel Harper-Jackson: “I’m in great company,” she smiles. “You cannot imagine how much gets packed into those one and a half hours; it’s extraordinary. It’s so dense and intense, and it’s sort of like a haiku, but there’s a lot of depth in it.”

She admits: “I don’t always think that actors are the best people to recognise brilliant writing, to be honest with you, we’re often so busy looking at the part you might play.

“But it’s wonderful writing, the story is great because it’s very human. It’s completely unpredictable. It’s funny, and it’s moving, and it’s devastating.”

They’re a few shows into their limited run in London (playing until 10 January 2026), and already Sadovy notes that she has witnessed a variety of responses: “You can hear people really listening hard.” However, she has at times noticed a vocal reaction, which she thinks may come from emotions taking over.

Daniel’s Husband plays out following a dinner party, where a picture-perfect gay couple, Daniel and Mitchell, debate marriage and whether it’s for them. It’s a family situation – something most people are preparing to endure over the holidays – and in this case, “it can be quite brutal, and a lot of truths come out… There are clashing beliefs and what have you.”

Sadovy plays Daniel’s mother, who she says “doesn’t realise that she’s wearing clay boots and stomps over everything. She’s quite a disruptor.”

“She’s not a homophobe or anything like that… I mean, you never know. She might be deep down subconsciously. We don’t know what we don’t know. But she absolutely adores Mitchell.”

The performer is a fan of writing like Alan Bennett’s Talking Heads: “What I love about that writing and about this is that people don’t realise what they’re giving away about themselves. They say something, and they say it in a certain way. They think they’re transmitting one thing, but the person who’s receiving it is going, ‘That’s terrible,’ you know? But they don’t.”

The piece first premiered in 2015, following a nationwide legalisation of marriage between two people of the same gender, before a hit run off-Broadway pre-Covid. Performing it now feels “even more pertinent” under the Trump administration: “You feel a slight threat to it now,” Sadovy says.

She reflects on the “terribly upsetting” cycles that human beings seem to be trapped in: “We’re just very destructive for some reason. We’re incredible and appalling all in the same breath.”

Going back to the starting point and Richardson’s quote, Sadovy refers to acting as “a wonderful white sheet of paper,” and any interruptions from the audience are like they’re blotting it with ink. It can create something new.

She leaves us with a little tease: “We have to live life and now in the moment, because you never know what’s going to happen…  I think for everyone after seeing Daniel’s Husband, they’ll take away something a little different.”